Interesting, it seems VTG or VTH may not be far off.

https://www.dcbel.energy/uk/technology/

Posted By: tonyThe outturn for us as a nation will be increased energy use as the inefficiencies add to total energy used

i.m.o. batteries make more sense as a nation than as a household.

i.e. sometimes the UK has more electricity than we can manage and other times we use inefficient power stations to get us out of fix (Low efficiency open cycle cycle gas turbines or even diesel generators).

If anyone is keen to use the middle of the range of their car battery to mitigate either or both of the above this has to be a good thing.

It all depends where you draw the boundary for the system efficiency

Posted By: cjardeveryone reducing is constantly being defeated by increasing numbers of reduced usage

But that can reverse (reducing resource-intensity defeats extra use) - just a matter of emerging technologies plus public wish/will. Of couse, if you belive public wish/will is iredeemably greedy, to cash-in every resource-intensity reduction into extra use plus a bit, then we really are doomed, might as well pack up and go home now. That's the real challenge - a worldwide understanding that we are 'nature', so can't beat it, and live within it accordingly.

Posted By: fostertomthat can reverse (reducing resource-intensity defeats extra use)

even with extra population - there's huge scope for resource-use reduction, given

Posted By: fostertoma worldwide understanding that we are 'nature', so can't beat it, and live within it accordingly

which is not out of the question.

That pop website is brilliant - and scary - but note that the curve is due to level in 'only' 78yrs time and then presumably fall. Tho, with the other elephant in the room (undiscussed prime threat, prob not figured into the trend so far) being the inevitability of ever-increasing novel virus/epidemics due to human disturbance of ecosystems, pop trend could change overnight.

Elsewhere on the website - total deaths so far this year = slightly (!00,000) more than total births this year. Explain that!

Back on topic - does anyone know what's happening with VW Audi Skoda bidirectional charging - there were a load of announcements last year that this would be introduced by a simple software update, but seems that didn't happen - anyone know more?

There's a list here - not quite H2L I guess but still useful.
https://zecar.com/resources/which-electric-cars-have-bidirectional-charging

From that article:--

Tesla took its first step into the British market three years ago by applying to the energy regulator for Great Britain to be an electricity generator. Ofgem granted its licence in June 2020.

At the time, industry observers speculated that Tesla might be planning to build large-scale battery storage projects in the UK, after its success building a 100MW storage scheme in less than 100 days in Australia.


Already done AFAIK

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/yorkshire/battery-energy-storage-facility-brought-online

Aside:
<blockquote>note that the curve is due to level in 'only' 78yrs time</blockquote>
Those UN figures are widely agreed to be innaccurate and most demographers reckon peak population is most likely to be in 2055 (i.e only 30 years) at a little over 9 billion. Which is a lot better than 10.5-11 billion in 2070. Essentially the factors reducing birthrates are accelerating, so historical data is no longer a good guide to the rate of change. Read 'Empty Planet' by Ibottsen and Bricker (or listen to an interview to get the basics). We'll find out who is right soon enough.

Back on bidirectional charging: AC bidirectional charging is just becoming available. Wallbox do one I believe and Pionix have published an open design: https://github.com/PionixPublic/reference-hardware which I hope will produce relatively cheap hardware soon. A few cars already work (the eGMP ones from Kia and Hyundai). But most refuse to 'uncharge' currently, despite having the relevant hardware built in. You can ask VW-group cars to do this, and the negotiation goes OK, but as soon as you try to draw current out it notices that the 'charging' is going backwards and disconnects. This should be fixed in software soon, but they've not promied anything yet. I believe there are other proprietary options used by fleet operators, but don't know any details.

All this is rather frustrating if you are actually trying to buy an EV (or charger) at the moment. The protocols exist and are reasonably open but the cars mostly don't enable it yet, and almost no chargers are available.

Posted By: philedgeI suspect that the countries DNOs may also be concerned about unmanaged high potential export into the grid if and when V2H/V2G becomes more commonplace??

I don't think the problem will be much worse than for the existing possibilities of PV panels and batteries? Presumably the same G98/G99 limits & procedures apply, so it's not exactly unmanaged.

Posted By: wookeyThe protocols exist and are reasonably open but the cars mostly don't enable it yet,

That means the situation is actually better than I thought!

Since our EV's been on the drive a bit more recently it's been working beautifully with the Zappi to suck up all the near zero value solar PV that would have been exported in the middle of the days. Being able to sell that back in the evening really would be game changing.

As EV batteries are pretty massive if you only discharge at 3kW you naturally get significant interday storage/smoothing too.

Posted By: WillInAberdeenPhil, the other way round - the power industry are very keen on V2G and Smart charging because it smooths out peaks and troughs in demand. Otherwise, they will have to build a lot more grid storage, and upgrade distribution wiring everywhere.

V2G are subject to the same G98/99 controls as home batteries or PV inverters, to not mess up frequency or voltage, and all new EV chargers have to support 'smart' operation in future (IE remotely disconnect-able).

(Edit- post crossed)

Isn't all the above smartness/management a plan for the future which is why V2G isnt approved, AFAIK. That being the case would explain the limited charger/vehicle availability which I was commenting on.

AFAIK various trials have been and gone a while ago. I guess we're in the head scratching stage working out how its all going to work

An industry standard may be a sticking point and I'm sure DNOs will have a great say, in order to protect networks. Export tariffs at present require an export MPAN which may be another small hurdle.
Add to that, the various committee-s, with every man and their dogs wanting input and it could be awhile.

EV batteries and coolants are typically designed to discharge into a 100kW+ motor, and charge from a 50kW+ charger.

The kind of power that consumers could feasibly export into the grid (4-7kW for a few hours) isn't going to degrade them.

There was a V2G trial before covid by OVO which monitored battery degredation over three years, I think RobL took part, battery degredation wasn't a problem.

The problem back then was the cost of the bidirectional charge points which were made bespoke. They need to be made in big numbers to get the price down so they will sell in big numbers (typical EV chicken/egg!)

Interestingly they made more money from 'grid backup services' (eg rapid power-up for a few minutes/seconds during brief gaps in the wind power) than they did from straightforwardly buying/selling off-peak kWh. That is the same market that gas backup power stations occupy. A few minutes of exporting a few kW will not discharge an EV battery measurably.

The question is how does the householder go about selling that service to the grid, they'd need an expert company to do it for them and remotely control their charger.

Posted By: RobLWe still have the car and charger, it’s now configured as V2H instead. It worked brilliantly during the V2G trial

How has it been reconfigured for V2H? Have you had to monitor export and have export limitation or have separate circuits within the house? If it was export limitation was that done within the Indra charger?